SAFEGUARDING OUR HERITAGE:
(What has the ordinary parish got to safeguard?)
Over the past several months, representatives of the four main Christian churches and the Department of the Environment have worked on guidelines for church buildings that are listed or 'protected.' Each side shares the same interests:One particular point: Certain furnishings, vessels and vestments become redundant. But isn't it important to provide a means to keep what has historic, artistic, liturgical significance? Some places have set us good example through their local museums, archives and heritage centres.
- that the best way to maintain our churches is by keeping them as places of worship;
- that our churches, interiors and exteriors, form a significant part of our architectural and artistic heritage;
- that church buildings have constantly adapted their spatial arrangements to developments in worship, but also in other aspects of the Church's mission and life.
-(INTERCOM, September, 2003)
ST AUGUSTINE
Born on November 13th, 354, at Tagaste in today's Algeria, to Monica and Patricius. He had a brother and at least one sister. Chosen as bishop of Hippo in 395, he died on August 28th, 340. We will mark his feast on Thursday next with a concelebrated Mass at 11.00.
AS I WAS SAYING...
The country has all but closed down. The politicians have deserted the scene, more or less. The newspapers are padded out with 'candy floss' articles.The 'silly season' is truly with us. Some very silly cuckoos take flight at this time. And, unfortunately, religion and related matters seems to be the last refuge of some of the silliest cuckoos of all! We had a few good examples of this during the week.
The first cuckoo to dislodge reality was Minister for State, James McDaid. As you are aware, there is a rather heated debate afoot at the moment concerning the government's intentions to outlaw smoking in the workplace from January 1st next. McDaid, himself a smoker, helpfully decided to broaden the scope of this debate to include incense at funeral Masses: "It makes me cringe when I see that huge cloud of smoke rising right up into the child's face, particularly given the delicate nature of a child's lungs, and the level of irritation it must cause", stated the still cringing minister. "I often asked priests to remind Mass servers to shake the thurible over and back so that the smoke did not billow into their face!" But the priest would have spent ten minutes before the Mass issuing precisely those same instructions, but to a different end: so that smoke would be produced IN ABUNDANCE!
But McDaid wasn't the only cuckoo in the air during the week. A Christian Evangelical group in the UK commissioned an advertising agency to advise on ways of increasing Sunday church congregations. We must presume that they consulted widely and deeply before coming back with the following: "Get rid of the cross," they advised, "traditional approaches such as showing Jesus on the cross and Bible quotations are a turn-off to non-churchgoers. Furthermore, the gory images of the crucified Christ distresses children."
It proposed that, instead of "traditional images like Jesus on a cross", an image of "a lone goldfish in a bowl with the line 'when did you last really need someone to talk to'?" and a vicar with the words "when was the last time you saw some really good stand-up . . . for free?" be used. So the goldfish in the bowl would replace the crucifix! Suggestions don't come more whacky than that!
Nonetheless, a wacky suggestion can be used to make a serious point. The Cross has had an enormous and abiding attraction for Christians of both the Catholic and Reformed traditions. Following the thinking of St. Paul and Augustine, Martin Luther established the Cross at the centre of his complex theology. In the Roman Catholic tradition two days are devoted exclusively to a contemplation of the Cross of Christ: Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. Both days remain enormously popular. With the exception of Christmas, these are in fact the only days on which we are guaranteed overflowing congregations in our churches.
Religion has often been charged with the promotion of escapism. Instead of fighting for better conditions here and now, adherents are encouraged to look to the hereafter for a solution to their problems! The power of the Cross lies in its insistence that reality -however unpleasant- must be embraced. Suffering is part of reality! But tell that to the goldfish, or the cuckoo!
-Dick Lyng.
MISSING GOD
(some extracts)
His grace is no longer called for
before meals: farmed fish multiply
without His intercession.
Bread production rises through
disease-resistant grains devised
scientifically to mitigate His faults.
Yet, though we rebelled against Him
Like adolescents, uplifted to see
an oppressive father banished -
a bearded hermit - to the desert,
we confess to missing Him at times.
Miss Him when the TV scientist
explains the cosmos through equations,
leaving our planet to revolve on its axis aimlessly,
a wheel skidding in snow.
Miss Him when the radio catches a snatch
of plain chant from some echoey priory;
when the gospel choir raises its collective voice
to ask Shall We Gather at the River?
or the forces of the oratorio converge
on I Know That My Redeemer Liveth
and our contracted hearts lose a beat.
Miss Him when the linen-covered
dining table holds warm bread rolls,
shiny glasses of red wine.
Miss Him when a dove swoops
from the orange grove in a tourist village
just as the monastery bell begins to take its toll.
Even feel nostalgic, odd days,
for His Second Coming,
like standing in the brick dome
of a dovecote
after the birds have flown.
(Dennis O'Driscoll)
"Quote, Unquote........ "
- "Every reformation must have its victims. You can't expect the fatted calf to share the enthusiasm of the angels over the prodigal's return." -Hector Munro.
- "We may find in the long run that tinned food is a deadlier weapon than the machine-gun." -George Orwell.
- "I have been told by hospital authorities that more copies of my works are left behind by departing patients than those of any other author." -Robert Benchley.
- "There are few more impressive sights in the world than a Scotsman on the make." -J.M. Barrie.
CHRISTINA NOBLE
Christina Noble is an extraordinary with an horrific, extraordinary background. Born in Dublin's inner city in 1950, she was raised in the Liberties during the 1950s and '60s. She repeatedly fell prey to a very, very dark side of Irish life. Her mother died when she was 10. When her alcoholic father deserted the family, Christina and her two younger brothers and sister were separated and placed in various institutions.
In her autobiography, Bridge Across My Sorrows, Christina describes in harrowing detail how she survived as a teenager on the streets before being sent to an institution in the west of Ireland. When she managed to escape and return to Dublin, she found herself alone and homeless.
At one stage she lived in a hole in the ground in the Phoenix Park. It was during that time that she was raped and became pregnant as a result. When the child was born, she was forced to give it up for adoption against her will. Aged 18, Christina ran away to England, where she married and had three children - but the cycle of abuse continued. Her husband was a violent man. She was regularly beaten, and eventually suffered a severe mental breakdown.
Remarkably, she has used her horrific experiences of childhood as the inspiration for her work with deprived children in Vietnam and Mongolia. "It all started back in 1971," she says. "I count that time as one of my lowest points. I had a dream then that I visited Vietnam. I know it sounds a bit crazy but I firmly believe it was more than a dream, it was a vision."
In 1989 Christina put that vision into action. She left England and arrived in Ho Chi Minh City with no money. Undaunted, she began the work that has since seen her charitable foundation transform the lives of 140,000 street children in Vietnam and Mongolia.
Having established a base in Vietnam, she now devotes much of her energies to helping deprived and homeless children in Mongolia. "I first visited the country in 1997 and couldn't believe the conditions that people were living in," Christina recalls. "This is a vast country with a sparse population of 2.7 million people, and yet thousands are merely surviving. We have built a village for the street children in the desert. It is comprised of small huts that are painted blue and red. It's lovely."
"At the moment, we have 42 street children in the school and 120 in kindergarten. We also run an educational programme for up to 1,200 children in Mongolia.
"We work in the children's prisons, in the women's prison and we have a clinic in the Mother and Child hospital."
"We have saved hundreds of children from prostitution, which is a very real problem over here. We have done a lot but we have so much more to do."
Christina visits Dublin now in connection with her Charity Foundation. Time Magazine voted her 'European of the Year' in 2001 and Queen Elizabeth awarded her the OBE in the New Years Honours List for 2003. Christina personifies in a spectacular fashion the triumph of the spirit over adversity.
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